diff --git a/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/translog/Translog.java b/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/translog/Translog.java
index b98f0f2b6438d..2faac1cb6671d 100644
--- a/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/translog/Translog.java
+++ b/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/translog/Translog.java
@@ -1641,6 +1641,9 @@ public TranslogGeneration getMinGenerationForSeqNo(final long seqNo) {
      * @throws IOException if an I/O exception occurred during any file operations
      */
     public void rollGeneration() throws IOException {
+        // make sure we move most of the data to disk outside of the writeLock
+        // in order to reduce the time the lock is held since it's blocking all threads
+        sync();
         try (Releasable ignored = writeLock.acquire()) {
             try {
                 final TranslogReader reader = current.closeIntoReader();